Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pakistan Coming Out Of The Closet?

By Steve Hynd


I'm intruiged by yesterday's report by Matthew Rosenberg that:



Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan's president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan�and its Chinese ally�for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy, Afghan officials say.


The pitch was made at an April 16 meeting in Kabul by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who bluntly told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Americans had failed them both, according to Afghans familiar with the meeting. Mr. Karzai should forget about allowing a long-term U.S. military presence in his country, Mr. Gilani said, according to the Afghans.



The post-summit statement by Pakistani PM Gilani yesterday certainly seems to confirm that theme, albeit in diplospeak ( bold emphasis is mine):



President Karzai and I agreed that there is no military solution to the problem.


The drone attacks are counter-productive. Loss of precious human lives cannot be just dismissed as �collateral damage�. Similarly, suicide attacks, resulting in loss of innocent lives as well as attacks on places of worship, are not only inhuman and barbaric but are evidently designed to denigrate Islam and to sow discord among Muslims, communities and societies. One wrong cannot be rectified by another wrong.


The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan have introspected deeply and can discern friends from foes. President Karzai and I have agreed that we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that our respective national interests and the collective interests of our two great Nations are fully safeguarded.



Hmmm...


That China has been Pakistan's "all-weather" ally, in contrast to the U.S., is something the other rising regional power, India has understood for some time and fuels tensions in the wider region as well as the Great Game being played in Afghanistan. Karzai may, however, be in the cleft stick of being either propped up by America forever while Pakistan tries to undermine him or of throwing in his lot with his neighbour and their nascent-superpower sponsor.


Update: Full Rosenberg piece here for those stopped by the WSJ paywall.



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